Silk Flowers 101

Is There Silk In Contemporary Silk Flowers? Can Real Touch Or Floramatique® Be As Good As Fresh Flowers?

Real touch silk flowers.

Since 2006 you can read at the very top of each page of this site, right to our logo: Silk Flowers As You Know Them Are Out. Discover Hottest New Generation/ Real Touch Artificials In Bridal Floral Arrangements Here. This two-sentence tagline describes concisely new development and direction for creating artificial wedding flowers:

1. Imitations of real, fresh cut flowers, looking decisively "fake", 'cut it' no more - they became largely abandoned and ignored at the onset of the twenty first century.

2. You can have 'silk' flowers for your wedding of the quality and appearance you have not yet seen or have known that they existed.

Along with highly realistic and lifelike replicas of fresh cut flowers, brand new terminology to classify and describe them (with our chief contribution) was created and has since been reaching the audiences well beyond professional florists. You may encounter now these new terms (new generation/artificial/silk flowers, real or fresh/natural/ true/soft touch flowers, floramatique, botanical accuracy, quality grade, etc.) on other websites and elsewhere online. Let us assist you in understanding and making sense out of all this. But allow us first to tell you briefly about the background in the short overview of the subject.

Hibiscus Florals was the first ever floral studio to use newly emerging real touch artificial flowers in bridal floral arrangements. It was in 2003. Brides-to-be, both in Canada and America, saw them in person already in the beginning of 2004: at Canada's Bridal Show in Toronto in January 2004 and at Great Bridal Expo in Long Island (Nassau County), New York in February 2004. And by 2005 we had developed a diverse array of designs exclusively with real (fresh, soft, true, natural) touch flowers for our site, long before any of online sellers of traditional, varying in quality silk wedding flowers, had even noticed the birth of a new branch of the wedding floral industry.
No other online wedding 'silk' florist had shown real touch flowers in any of the arrangements they were selling, neither on any of the auction sites and/or on their websites, before 2006. Years had passed until we saw the first trend-follower online.
We have been using on our website, already since the first part of 2005, phrases: real touch, new generation, grade 6 (combined together and/or standing alone) and with each and every individual product detailed description - anywhere we introduced these modern, state-of-the-art man-made flowers in our artificial wedding flower arrangements. Moreover, you could read here, also as far back as in 2005, the cornerstone article (since kept up-to-date with new industry information) of the webpage you are now reading:What Are The Quality Grades For Silk Flowers? (see further down the texts). This article clearly classified and defined six quality grades of silk flowers, the highest, new generation/ real touch/ grade 6 included.
We have been closely following, into its seventh year now, growing assortment, innovations and maturing of real (fresh, true, soft, natural) touch flowers (along with traditional but improved 'silks'), presently made in dozens of factories in the Orient. And we observed the emergence, in 2006, of a "new kid on the block" - Floramatique®.
Since our 2003 introduction them to the bridal market, amplified by our subsequent, focused website presentation, contemporary lifelike and ultra realistic faux wedding flowers of real touch quality have eventually started becoming known and sought after. Our well-planned and sustained efforts translated into an accelerating number of sales for us. Moreover, brides-to-be educated themselves with the information presented on our highly visible on the Net site - they read the text and saw high-resolution pictures of our work. And they started asking their peers and other florists, both locally and online, if they knew where to get/ if they carried real touch 'silk' flowers, often showing pictures of our bouquets to them. This way the awareness has been growing about new, highest quality 'fake' bridal floral arrangements, that have differed so much from ordinary artificial wedding flowers, plentiful at auction sites and various websites. And it was just a matter of time when some intrigued entrepreneurs/florists in Canada, America, Britain, Australia and elsewhere started sourcing these new faux flowers and eventually tried to follow the trend, spearheaded by our online showcase, in their work.
Keep in mind that florists and floral industry newcomers did not know about/did not see the ultimate highest quality, new generation artificial bridal arrangements until they 'educated themselves' through the information and pictures they found on... our website. Subsequently, the new 'lingo', precisely naming and differentiating quality grades of artificial flowers, has been progressively adopted by brides-to-be and online and 'brick and mortar' wedding florists alike.

All statements we have ever made on our site have had a strong factual basis. With the intent for you to know how to critically look at and effectively choose online modern artificial wedding arrangements with flowers of various quality grades, new generation/ real touch and/or Floramatique® in particular. We periodically add the relevant and current information and remove that of past importance/current irrelevance; the same applies to our past designs being phased-out and replaced with new ones. We do adjustments to our site the way, when and as often we best see it fit. If you wish to see how we presented and marketed our bridal floral arrangements, and how their design, flower composition and quality looked like/have evolved, there is a Google tool called WayBack Machine you can employ for that purpose. You can examine and compare there texts, pictorial and graphic content of any website for that matter (unless it is purposefuly re-directed and 'hidden' by a site owner - a strong sign of a deliberate deception), at given/requested points in time. Then you will know without a doubt who makes true and who fraudulent claims about their site(s) past history and character.

Being pioneers in sourcing, empirical research and usage of new generation/ real touch permanent botanicals, we are able to present in-depth details and opinions about all kinds of faux flowers - the material you will not find anywhere else, either in print or online (unless "borrowed" from us and often misinterpreted by newbie real touch and Floramatique "specialists" and "experts"). So you are about to read the most comprehensive and up-to-date series of articles on the subject of silk/artificial flowers. Enjoy!

What Are Real Touch Artificial Flowers And How Are They Made?

In order to understand what modern, top quality silk flowers are, you need to know that they are very rarely made with silk. In fact, what is referred today to as real touch (also known as fresh, natural, true or soft touch) silk/artificial flowers of the very best quality and lifelike, ultra realistic in detail look, are blends of complex chemical composites like polyurethane, latex, Poly-chloride vinyl (PVC), more advanced polymers and synthetic or natural fabrics (including, sometimes, silk). They are shaped from sculpted moulds of high precision forming abilities. Amazing elasticity of stems, foliage and buds has been achieved, similar to the bending flexibility of real flowers.

Sophisticated coating techniques are employed to give the ultimate top quality artificial flowers genuine feel to the touch. True-to-life colors are achieved with special layering processes. Original real touch technologies were developed at US universities and technical laboratories, later perfected and tested at industrial level in Taiwan and Japan. Then they were introduced to and adapted at factories elswhere in Asia (predominantly in China and Thailand).

Because so much is involved in making artificial flowers in the twenty first century, and so diverse materials are used, silk flowers term remains largely a generic name, a remnant from the bygone era when artificial flowers were manufactured from polyester, cotton and silk blends. We therefore use terms 'artificial' and 'silk' flowers interchangeably.

Some 'old school' florists, new to the idea of modern, state-of-the-art artificial flowers (and extremely reluctant to use them in bouquets, as they would have to learn and practice new, not existing before arranging/assembly techniques, away from the 'known and tried' with fresh cut flowers) are bent on using a term permanent botanicals. We prefer to keep it accurate and short: artificial flowers. A rather imprecise term silk flowers will soon fade away and become obsolete in referring to all 'fake' (faux, synthetic) flowers.

On the other hand, some florists who fairly recently discovered and embraced real touch flowers list on their sites natural touch, fresh touch, true touch and soft touch flowers as separate 'brands'. These terms (but one) are in fact just commercial names for real touch 'fakes', referring to the general category of artificial flowers that imitate the real feel to the touch. The only name that was never used in the past by importers/ suppliers in America, Canada and overseas is natural touch. It was coined (circa 2007) by the trend followers, not wanting to use what we have been describing since our introduction in artificial bridal flower arrangements in 2003 as the new generation/ real touch.

Each of manufacturers of real touch flowers (number of factories and production outputs have been diminishing since the great economic crash in the fall of 2008), regardless of which particular commercial names are used by them and/or direct importers, makes both more and less lifelike flowers. They vary in botanical accuracy and quality depending on kinds of flowers they choose to produce. For instance, the same factory can make an excellent line of ultra realistic roses but not so great orchids, or vice versa. Research and development, complexity of adapted technology, manufacturing processes and machine tools utilized, scientific and engneering know-how and quality control levels are the factors deciding on how 'good' certain synthetic flowers are. Therefore, the quality of real touch flowers varies not only from one manufacturer to the other but also from one specimen to the other, even under the same commercial name umbrella. Classification of quality grades of 'silk' flowers (see details further down the texts) we developed in 2005 clearly describes the requirements of grade 6 inclusion - we place only the best real touch flowers there.

Most of the artificial flowers available today (called also permanent botanicals, faux, fake, synthetic or, traditionally: silk) are produced mainly in Asia, but with the use of patents, fabrication technology and machine tools originating from America and Europe.

What Are Artificial Flowers Known As Floramatique®?

A relatively new method of fabricating artificial flowers from the polyether polyurethane (PEU) has been in existence since 2006. The flowers manufactured with this technology are sold under the trade name of Floramatique. They originate from only one factory in China, that holds the patent. We have been using Floramatique products selectively since the second part of 2006, shortly after they were introduced. Now we can present our own and solely our own assessment of them, as Hibiscus Florals' opinions derived from our observations and employing them (selectively) in creating our bridal floral arrangements.

A Simplified Description Of Floramatique® Flowers Fabrication Process:

A mixture of polyether and polyurethane compose a light-weight foam (with chemical additives like foaming and cross-linking agents, stabilizers, etc.) that is poured into the molds to form artificial flowers' components. Paste in various colors is injected directly into the foam, then additionally sprayed onto the surfaces (of stems and leaves) and heated (to bake in the desired colors permanenty). It is not done manually - the process is computer-controlled.

This very supple material resists pretty well damages caused by squeezes and collisions, and is relatively stable at ambient temperature variations. However, the polyether polyurethane's low density chemical composition (at least in presently available in the market Floramatique's line of artificial flowers) has limitations - it cannot be effectively and precisely formed below certain thickness, otherwise it will tear off very easily. Therefore, it does not give good botanical accuracy in imitating flowers of intricate composition and with relatively thin and/or varying in thickness petals in nature. Therefore, most of Floramatique flowers like roses, peonies, lilies, most types of orchids, etc.. are not realistic enough to give a full visual impression of precise replicas of fresh flowers - their petals are too thick and the level of detail is not sufficient (to classify them as new generation/ grade 6 top quality artificials).

Floramatique synthetic flowers compete very well, but with just a very few types of their real touch faux counterparts in, i.e., calla lilies and tulips (flowers that are fairly thickly built and "meaty"). And these Floramatique botanical replicas of calla lilies and tulips, which we utilize in our custom and non-custom designs, have also a lifelike look and their feel to the touch do resemble fresh flowers, indeed. Therefore, we place Floramatique line of botanically correct in every detail calla lilies and tulips also in the grade 6/ new generation quality category (please see the quality grades' discussion in sections below).

Real Touch And Floramatique® Artificial Flowers - Which Ones Are Better?

We have seen and physically examined a full line of currently made Floramatique® permanent botanicals. As a result of our comparative observations over time we conclude that real touch technologies offer far more choices of truly new generation artificial flowers, delivering on the promise of being botanically accurate in appearance and precisely made replicas of fresh flowers. Floramatique® is a relatively new and promising technology, but in order to truly compete with the proven and perfected real touch flowers, requires further improvements of the material and fabrication processes.

Nevertheless, Floramatique calla lilies and tulips are the best so far made, botanically accurate and with a real feel to the touch new generation artificial flowers. They come in scented (we do not use) and unscented versions. And their 'factory' colors are true-to-life, with displayed gradation of the color shading and hues (i.e., Floramatique mango calla lilies).

Floramatique lines of faux flowers are presently far better known in the continental Europe, Britain, Canada and Australia (where major importers there carry them) than in the United States.

Which Silk Flower Arrangements To Choose?

Man-made flowers cover a broad spectrum - from low-end to very high quality. You can observe the same wide range of quality in silk flower arrangements available from online and off-line florists.

Low-end artificial flowers are sometimes dotted with tiny balls of acrylic to imitate droplets of water (dew drops) and can be bought cheaply. The petals of poor quality fake flowers do not hold their shapes and often fall off the stems. Upon close examination the dyes are mostly uneven and the edges easily fray. When used in silk floral arrangements, they appear very fake and tacky.

If quality is not a big concern for you, then many low value artificial flower arrangements can be found on auction sites where bidding prices start very low. Indeed, the price range may be a good indicator of the quality level you get.

Medium quality range silk flower arrangements may look like the "real McCoy" from a distance (and on online pictures without an adequate zoom-in feature, despite how well photographed) but do not pass the test of credible lifelike appearance upon closer scrutiny. Therefore, many online claims of "highest", "premium", "finest" or "deluxe" quality silk flower arrangements cannot be substantiated, if not supported by a presence of high resolution, detailed, close-up pictures.

High quality silk flowers in arrangements have more lifelike appearance, ranging from pretty realistic to ultra realistic. Their stems are individually wired and wrapped, and require little effort to bend and work with. Top of the spectrum silk floral arrangements are the ones you can see up close at some exclusive hotels, upscale restaurants, art galleries and high-end boutiques. They are custom made and can be often mistaken by an untrained eye for fresh ones. We utilize the same top quality artificial flowers in silk flower arrangements we create for our customers.

The most diligent manufacturers of artificial flowers carefully examine how individual blooms resemble their natural counterparts. Then they scrupulously recreate their botanical accuracy by using cutting edge technology processes.

Top quality silk flowers in bridal floral arrangements.

Satisfied bride Holly Malcik with Hibiscus Florals silk wedding flowers. View larger images of her flowers here.

Take a look at the lifelike grade 6/ real touch mango calla lilies used in our Mango Tango Collection (in the upper photo from 2004) that brightened so many destination weddings of our customers. This is our original, 'timeless' 2004 package design (which we re-launched in 2007 as New Mango Tango Collection with addition of amazing Floramatique® calla lilies). You will find it here very difficult to distinguish these callas from the fresh ones. These artificial tropical flowers consist of the advanced polymer mix (with the outer real touch surface coating) so they have lifelike elasticity and the velvet-like softness (as the fresh cut calla lilies)

You can see an example ofanother very advanced flower manufacturing technology, Floramatique® - in the lower picture on your right. Holly from Austin, Texas used a depicted magnificent mango callas bouquet of our design at her beach destination wedding. These unbelievably realistic and lifelike Floramatique® calla lilies are also of the highest grade 6/ new generation quality.

Some online florists experiment lately with dyeing synthetic calla lilies and other flowers with uniform and strongly defined colors, trying to achieve more "tropical" look. They think that, by doing so, they broaden a variety of exotic colors for artificials. In fact, that often results in quite odd and unnatural in appearance colors, never seen in flowers growing wild and cultivated in near-equatorial and equatorial latitudes (except rare hybrids). What gives us a right to say so? Well, our main designer was brought up in the real tropics. Therefore, beside having seen over the years of her childhood and youth a tremendeous range of flower species, she knows which colors are true-to-life and which are not, and for what flowers.

What Are The Quality Grades For Silk Flowers?

We organized and refined quality grade classification of artificial flowers in 2005. Now you see cited and repeated on the Net term grade 6/ new generation applied to highest quality silk/artificial flowers - we invented it and coined it. We associate that term only with real touch and so far with just a few of Floramatique® flower kinds.

There are six grades of silk flowers, from lowest to the highest quality. Upper quality grades are available to professional florists only, and the ones who know where and how to source. You will not find them in craft or craft chain stores.

Let us first go quickly through the quality grades of artificial flowers in a manner you can relate to:
- dollar stores: grade 1, sometimes 2;
- flea markets: grades 1 and 2;
- craft sections of department stores: grades 2 (mainly) and 3 (sparsely);
- individual and chain craft stores: predominantly grade 3, if grade 4, rarely, and at a high price.

Grades 4, 5 and 6 are professional grades, where realistic look in details, higher quality materials used and better made individual components (of flowers) come into play.

Grade 3 is made out of cheaper materials. Therefore shapes do not hold that well and edges (of petals) frail easily. The color is not uniform due to using cheaper dye lots. The texture and consistency of lower quality materials does not allow recreating details with precision in the manufacturing process.

There is a big difference, in appearance and price, once you move from grade 3 to 4.

Grade 4, made with better materials have a pretty realistic look, with all details recreated well (petals, leaves, stems, joints, thorns, etc.), in thickness, shapes and colors. Shapes do not "limp" and flowers have a natural look in color and texture.

Grade 5 are made with such degree of precision that even natural flaws in fresh flowers are copied. Very close to 100% of botanical accuracy and the most lifelike look.

Grade 6, called new generation / real touch of silk flowers offers the ultimate in quality. Not only the look is ultra realistic down to very small details, but a feel to the touch is imitated. The texture of the materials is such that when you touch petals, leaves and stems you have a sense of touching fresh flowers. We include here only some of Floramatique faux flowers, the ones that have sufficient detailed botanical accuracy.

A Word Of Caution: Inferior Quality Of Artificial Flowers, False Claims & Deceptive Information

Fake, counterfeit real touch artificial flowers appeared on the market by the end of 2005. Their petals have more rubbery feel to the touch, instead of a more natural one. They do not have that high-tech coating, giving them fresh to the touch feel, applied. As they are made out of common materials, like plain rubber, industrial-grade latex or hard polyester, their petals are more rigid - a far cry from the bending flexibility of authentic / new generation real touch artificial flowers. They are also often imprecisely cut from the mold and you can see that by examining closely edges of the petals.
You can see lately some better made rubber, foam and latex knockoffs at craft stores, even with fresh touch and/or true touch tags attached. Their petals and leaves are not thin enough and not flexible enough to resemble those of fresh cut flowers and their level of botanical accuracy is not sufficient enough to pass as grade 6/ real touch flowers.
Then there are what we call second rate real touch flowers. Although their petals may in fact resemble the real/ natural feel to the touch, the quality of the other components is visibly inferior ('fake' looking). Their stamens, stems and joints are usually poorly assembled and glued. These cheaper versions are being often presented by 'newbie' florists, who have not yet seen authentic, premium quality artificial grade 6/ real touch flowers as the true McCoy.
Stay away from online 'silk' florists, new to the highest quality artificial bridal floral arrangements, trying to tell you that others charge much higher prices for the same bouquets as they (can) make. In fact, they may offer you amateurishly crafted, often small and skimpy bouquets with just a few/ several flowers and a very limited choice of flower kinds and colors, often inexpensive rubber and latex real touch knockoffs, or even traditional 'silks' they try to pass to you as real touch flowers. You can easily assess what they can really create by looking carefully at pictures of their work, while paying close attention to the number, selection of flowers and design complexity level (if any) in their bouquets. If their website photographs are not large enough to see the flowers' small details, they may try to conceal their true quality.
More and more of online 'silk' florists display false date portions of their copyright notices in their websites' footers or untrue statements of how long they have been in existence. Examples: 1). A certain website shows copyright notice 1999-2009 despite the fact that their site's domain name was first registered in the fall of... 2008. 2). Other site claims to have been established in 2000 but did not have the online presence before... August of 2005. 3) The footer of another website indicates 1997 as their inception but they had not been present online... before November of 2005.
You could look at pictures of, for example, "fresh alternative" wedding flower arrangements. Fresh alternative is a vague and potentially very misleading term (never properly defined for the flower content and quality differences), that one of online florists has been using for quite some time. But, she has not used on her website, until the second part of 2008, any of real (fresh, true, soft, natural) touch or Floramatique® terminology. Having had and used hardly any authentic real touch artificial flowers in her work in the past, she was fairly recently "forced" to switch to them by potential clients (educated on our website) wanting all their flowers be of genuine real touch quality. So you could see nicely air-brushed, color-enhanced and dull-edged images (a method of photo-processing intended to fool viewers). And (not talking here about a design or a lack of thereof, or the appearance of arrangements) you could incorrectly assume that all main flowers in them were of true real touch qualty. But what you did not know is which of the pictured blooms could pass the test of real touch authenticity, which were the real touch knockoffs and which were just ordinary silks. You could have examined and assessed their differences, if they had been displayed in non-retouched, close-up and high-resolution photographs, or you could have seen them in person. As a result of the described above marketing deception, run for years, many brides who purchased their "fresh alternative" bridal floral arrangements were convinced that they were getting all real touch flowers in them. But they could have not known that they were conned even after receiving their flowers, not having seen before in person authentic real touch flowers and not having compared them physically to ordinary, higher quality silks, or real touch knockoffs.
Do not be conned by a bogus and fairly recent claim of (pretending to be) "always industry leaders" (up to and into 2006 still selling on Ebay - then a source of cheap, predominantly low-grade bridal silks) that they were replacing silks with natural touch flowers as soon as they became available. No "replacements" of notable numbers (of traditional 'silks') with genuine real touch artificial flowers were shown online in their work until well into 2007 (and none of Floramatique® until the last quarter of 2008). And they did not even mention on their website about real (fresh, true, soft, natural) touch or/and Floramatique® flowers until... the second part of 2008. Did they, despite wanting to be now perceived as 'trend-setters', intend to keep the knowledge about these great quality flowers and that they had them "under wraps" for so long? But how could brides-to-be learn about the real feel to the touch flowers, what they were, and how to ask for them by their proper real (natural, fresh true, soft) touch synonym names, if they had not, in the past, read about them (accurate 'lingo' and descriptions included) and seen plenty of them displayed in bridal floral arrangements somewhere else?!
Be very cautious when dealing with online sellers who display photographs of fresh cut flowers' designs (not theirs), either posing as silk floral arrangements, or added for "inspiration"/"ideas". Moreover, publishing someone else's pictorial and/or written material without clearly indicating the source of each photograph and text is a copyright infringement.
Beware of 'newbie' online silk florists assuring you that they have been "specializing" in real touch/ soft touch/ natural touch and/or Floramatique® flowers for a considerable period of time, but their websites (online most probably for no more than a year) show none, one, or just a few arrangements with these flowers, pictured. You would not want an amateur, wannabe florist experimenting and learning on your bride's bouquet.
Do not be mislead by fresh florists advertising online (craigslist, kijiji, etc.) that they also "specialize" in high quality silk wedding flowers, and in real/ natural touch and Floramatique flowers in particular. When you visit their websites you may not see even a single 'fake' bridal bouquet. But, while looking at their photographs of arrangements with supposedly realistic artificial flowers, you may not realize that all of them consist of fresh cut flowers only.

Artificial Flowers: How It All Started

For as long as humans walked the earth, people have been trying to recreate Nature's flowers using many kinds of materials.

Some of the artifacts found in ancient caves indicate that we made artificial flowers from wood shavings, stones and even human hair. Today, hand-crafting of flowers is still an art.

Our interest in copying these wonders of nature has been rekindled to the point where some contemporary manufacturers work at attaining the "botanically correct" look for artificial flowers they make. They compete with each other to get as close to the real thing as possible, and constantly amaze and surprise traditional florists, who know their craft and materials well.

Advantages Of Silk Floral Arrangements

The technology for making artificial flowers that imitate nature to pretty fine details has been in existence for just several years. And it has been improving rapidly but steadily. It remains to be seen what new levels of detail accuracy with silk flowers will be achieved by our suppliers using modern machine tools and expert know-how. At present, artificial flowers of new generation/ real touch and (some of) Floramatique® quality are the pinnacle of the ultra realistic look and genuine feel to the touch.

Hibiscus Florals is thrilled to be in the forefront of this exciting and growing business. Creating beauty with 'silk' floral arrangements for weddings is our passion, and we are very good at it. The convenience of everlasting artificial flower arrangements is not overlooked by our satisfied customers. Especially by our destination brides who often praise us for relieving their stress by providing them with maintenance-free bridal bouquets of silk flowers and other wedding flower arrangements they can travel with.

Using high quality synthetic flower arrangements for wedding ceremonies and receptions, and to decorate living or work spaces, as the great alternative to real ones, is a growing trend. By buying 'silk' florals you can make an environmentally conscious decision. No water, soil or fertilizer has to be used to grow and keep them alive, unlike for the fragile and perishable wonders of nature; and that for just a moment in time.

Jackie & Mark, Owners

Hibiscus Florals

This article is a copyrighted material. It was written on the basis of extensive travels, research, studies and first-hand experience of the owners and staff of Hibiscus Florals. Therefore, it is our company's proprietary intellectual property. We uploaded the original, first version of this material onto our site in May 2005 and we have been updating it ever since. Any unauthorized use/copying it in excerpts or in full, writing variations/modified versions of is prohibited.